Page:Ralph Paine--The praying skipper.djvu/255

Rh in which the safety and strength of the ship were questioned. Helpless to make reply, she accepted defeat, for the parting hour was far gone and the separation always taxed her fitful energy near to breaking.

Always as he raised her for the last kiss, and then halted reluctant in the doorway, he was to her as her bright youth had first seen him, a red viking, born to master steel and steam instead of the galleys of his forebears. This night he smote his chest resoundingly before he vanished into the hallway, and said in comforting farewell:

"It is here, in the old brown wallet, next my heart, where thou dwellest, my Flora. Our money is soon on the old Wasdale. God keep you!"

The biting wind of early March fairly whipped the captain up the side of the liner lying, with shortened cable, mid-stream in the Mersey. Clutching a stiff hat with one hand, baggy trousers fluttering, the tails of his frieze ulster tripping